New 'Annie' movie less about 'Tomorrow' and all about today

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Forget the curly red hair and Depression-era orphans.

(L-R) Actor Jamie Foxx, and actresses Quvenzhane Wallis and Cameron Diaz pose for photographers during a photocall for their film Annie, in central London December 16, 2014. REUTERS/Neil Hall

The hit musical “Annie” moves firmly into the 21st century in a new film version where the star is a street-smart African-American foster kid who rides New York buses, and her savior is a black cell phone billionaire who will stop at nothing to become mayor.

“Tomorrow” is still the signature song, but the “Annie,” produced by a team that includes rapper Jay-Z and actor Will Smith, is all about today.

Quvenzhane Wallis, 11, who two years ago became the youngest person to win a Best Actress Oscar nomination, plays the foster kid living a hard-knock life in the multiethnic version of the Tony-winning 1977 Broadway musical that opens in U.S. movie theaters on Friday.

Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks is transformed from a 1930s industrialist into the workaholic telecoms tycoon Will Stacks, (Jamie Foxx), while actor Bobby Cannavale adds a topical, satirical edge as his scheming political campaign adviser.

The musical’s famous songs get a pop music makeover, sprinkled with the sounds of street jackhammers and trash can lids, and Annie’s fake parents are found in mass reality TV-style auditions.

Cannavale said the updates bring the beloved musical “to a contemporary American audience which is one of many different colors, shapes, sizes and ethnicities.”

“It is really exciting that kids can go and see themselves now in this movie in a way they were not able to before,” Cannavale told Reuters

“This is a woman who thinks that to be loved she has to be famous, which is kind of an epidemic in our society right now,” Diaz said.

Wallis made a big splash as an enigmatic child survivalist in the 2012 independent movie “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” But like much of the rest of the “Annie” cast, she had little previous experience as a singer and dancer and said she had not seen the stage musical or any of its many TV or film remakes.

“I saw the musical after (filming) because they didn’t want it to interfere with the way I filmed it,” Wallis explained.

The way director Will Gluck filmed it, however, has won scant approval from U.S. movie critics. The Hollywood Reporter called the film a “toxic mess,” while Variety deemed it “overblown and undernourished.”